Guide 06
Property Tax And Escrow For A Bexar County Home
Property tax is the largest variable in the cost of holding a Texas home, and the one most likely to change in the year after a sale. This guide estimates the annual tax and the monthly amount it works out to, and explains what a lender or servicer does with a figure like it.
How the figure is used
A tax estimate is an input, not a decision.
When a lender builds a projected housing expense, or a servicer funds and later reviews an escrow account, a property-tax estimate is one of the inputs. Both use their own sources for it. Which figure is used on a file, what appears on a Loan Estimate, and what an escrow deposit becomes after an escrow analysis are determined by the requirements that apply to the loan program, the lender, and the servicer.
This page is educational. It estimates Bexar County property tax from published rates and nothing else. It does not quote loan terms, it does not run a credit or underwriting review, and nothing entered on it establishes qualification, program eligibility, or the cost of a loan.
Ask before you close. Ask which tax figure your file is using, and how the escrow account is being funded. When an account is funded from the seller's certified bill and the property is then reappraised without the seller's cap or exemption, the account is short and the deposit is recalculated at the next escrow analysis. Both effects land together, which is why the change can look larger than the tax increase alone.
Why it changes
The seller's cap and exemption do not come with the house.
Texas limits how fast a homestead's taxable value can rise, but the limitation belongs to the owner who claimed it. Under Tex. Tax Code 23.23(c) the prior owner's limitation expires on January 1 of the tax year following a change of ownership, and the property is appraised at market value with no cap.
A homestead exemption ends the same way. So the current owner's bill can sit either above or below what the next owner is billed: an owner-occupant's exempted bill understates it, and an investor-owned property carrying no exemption can overstate it. That is why the estimate below is built from the price you are paying rather than from what the seller pays now.
Estimate
Estimate the annual tax and the monthly contribution.
Enter the purchase price, the school district, and whether the address is inside the City of San Antonio or in unincorporated Bexar County. Rates and exemptions come from the county's 2025 official table. If you have the current annual tax bill for the address, add it and the two figures are compared.
Estimated annual property tax
Compared with the current bill you entered
No current annual tax bill was entered, so nothing has been compared. The figure above is an estimate of future tax on its own — it does not say whether the tax on this address will go up, go down, or stay the same. Enter the current annual bill to compare.
At the appraisal district value you entered
Where the estimated tax goes
Each taxing unit sets its own rate and its own exemption, so they cannot be collapsed into a single percentage. Effective rate on the purchase price: .
| Taxing unit | Rate per $100 | Exemption | Tax |
|---|
Bexar County, TX official website — 2025 Official Tax Rates & Exemptions — tax year 2025, retrieved 2026-08-30, re-verified before 2026-10-01.
Educational estimate only. It is not a Loan Estimate, a commitment to lend, an approval, an appraisal, or an escrow analysis, and it is not legal or tax advice. Nothing entered here establishes qualification, program eligibility, or loan terms. Appraised values, adopted rates, and exemptions are set by the appraisal district and the taxing units and change from year to year; verify any figure you intend to act on with the Bexar County official tax rates and exemptions page and the taxing units.
Scope
What the estimate covers, and what it leaves out.
It prices Bexar County taxing units for property in the City of San Antonio or in unincorporated Bexar County, across all 12 Bexar County independent school districts. Anything below is outside the table, and the calculator says so rather than pricing it at zero — a taxing unit silently left out of a sum does not look like an error, it looks like a cheaper house.
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01
Other municipalities
Universal City, Schertz, Cibolo, Live Oak, Converse, Selma, Helotes, Leon Valley, and every other incorporated city in and around Bexar County adopt their own rates.
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Special districts
Emergency Services Districts, MUDs, and PIDs are never inferred from an address. If you have verified one on an actual notice, enter its rate in the optional field and it is added as a line you supplied.
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School districts outside the list
Choose “My district is not listed” and the calculator reports an unsupported address instead of leaving a taxing unit out of the total.
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Age, disability, and veteran exemptions
Over-65, disability, and disabled-veteran exemptions and their tax ceilings change the result substantially and are not modelled here.
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Counties other than Bexar
Parts of the San Antonio metro sit in Guadalupe, Comal, Wilson, Atascosa, Medina, and Kendall counties.
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Everything that is not property tax
No loan terms, no cost of financing, no insurance, and no escrow analysis.
Questions
Common questions.
Does the seller's homestead exemption carry over to me?
No. It belongs to the owner who claimed it and ends with their ownership. In the tax year after the sale the property is appraised at market value with no inherited cap and no inherited exemption, which is why the seller's current bill can understate what you are billed -- or overstate it, if the home was held as a rental and carried no exemption at all.
Why does the estimator ask for a current annual tax bill?
Because a comparison needs a number that was observed rather than assumed. Leave it blank and the page shows the estimated future tax on its own. It will not report a change of zero, because an absent input cannot support the claim that the tax on an address will not move.
Can I use the appraisal district's value instead of the bill?
You can enter it, and the page shows an estimate at that value, labelled as an estimate. It is not used as the comparison baseline. An appraised value is not a bill: it omits over-65, disability, and disabled-veteran ceilings, any exemption this page does not model, and every taxing unit outside the table below.
Will my lender use the figure this page produces?
No. A lender or servicer estimates property tax from its own sources when it builds a projected housing expense or funds an escrow account. Which figure is used, and what the escrow deposit becomes after an escrow analysis, is determined by the requirements that apply to your loan program, your lender, and your servicer. This page is educational and determines nothing about a file.
Does filing a homestead exemption stop the increase?
It reduces taxable value and starts a 10% annual cap on the homestead's appraised value going forward. It applies to the new market value rather than restoring the prior owner's capped value.
Two homes at the same price had very different tax bills. Why?
School district rates differ across Bexar County, and a home in unincorporated county is billed no municipal rate at all. Those two facts move the annual tax more than anything else on this page.
Looking at a specific address?
Send the address and the county assessment and we can walk through how the tax figure is likely to be treated on a file, and what to confirm before closing.